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With Uber facing a real mash up between brand image, finances and ethics, its former CEO Travis Kalanick stepped down following differences in his style of management as well as bungling ethics and management policies. Dara Khosrowshahi, 48, has joined Uber as it’s new Chief Executive Officer, and is the sole force driving Expedia from ground zero to the Galaxy.

Khosrowshahi has been CEO of Expedia for 12 years, which is based in Bellevue, Washington & Khosrowshahi himself has spent his tech career as part of the Seattle’s technology arena instead of that of the famed Silicon Valley. Since both regions are powerhouses in the tech industry, there’s also an obvious rivalry existing between them.

But first of all, let’s all see who Dara Khosrowshahi is and where he comes from? =)

Dara Khosrowshahi as a young boy

Dara Khosrowshahi was born on May 28, 1969, in Tehran, Iran to a prominent family that established the Alborz Investment Company, a diversified conglomerate dealing in pharmaceuticals, food, distribution, trading, packaging and services. Iranian Canadian billionaire Hassan Khosrowshahi is his relative. Dara’s family emigrated to the United States in 1978, prior to the Islamic Revolution of Iran which saw most of his family’s assets get illegally seized by the new Iranian government. He eventually settled with his family in Tarrytown, New York and graduated from the Hackley School at the age of 18 with a high school diploma. In 1991, he graduated with a B.A in electrical engineering from Brown University.

Dara Khosrowshahi recalls how he and his family had to emigrate: “Our family escaped Iran on the eve of the Iranian Revolution in 1978, when I was 9. We moved in with my uncle in Tarrytown. For the grown-ups, it was a difficult transition. The kids were able to party together, so it was fun.”

He also recalled about his father going back to Iran to care for his grandfather and returning back after a long time: “My father had to go back to Iran to take care of his father when I was 13 and was detained for six years before returning. My mom was raising three kids without a dad.”

Dara Khosrowshahi on extreme right, visiting London with his cousins in 1973

Dara Khosrowshahi began working as an Analyst at Allen & Company, an Investment bank and he left that in 1998 to work for one of his former clients Barry Diller, first at USA Networks and then at IAC as it’s Chief Financial Officer. It was in 2001 that IAC Travel acquired Expedia & in August 2005, Khosrowshahi was promoted as the CEO of Expedia. It was during his tenure that Expedia grew and expanded presence in more than 60 countries around the globe, Hotels.com, Hotwire online booking brands, and the travel community sites of TripAdvisor Media Network. In 2015, Expedia awarded him USD$ 90 million in stock options as a part of a long term employment agreement, where he stated that he would stay until 2020. Dara Khosrowshahi has had quite an impressive and respectable tenure at Expedia, growing revenues from USD$ 2.1 billion in 2005 to USD$ 8.7 billion in 2016, turning Expedia in one of the biggest online travel agencies in the U.S.A and owning sites like hotels.com, Orbitz, Trivago, HomeAway, Travelocity as well as other sites for vacation rentals, car rentals as well as other travel & vacation related sites as well.

The Economist revealed that during Khosrowshahi’s tenure, the gross value of Expedia’s hotel and travel booking related services multiplied more than 5 times and the pre tax earnings multiplied as well. In 2016, He was one of the highest paid CEO’s in the U.S.A, and is a board member from BET.com, Hotels.com, New York Times Company, Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and other companies as well. He has been praised by the New York Times company for his competitive tech based mindset and for his comprehensive digital & international experience coupled with his financial expertise. He has also been an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s anti immigrant policies and rhetoric.

He married Sydney Shapiro in 2012, in Las Vegas and is father to four children with her. In his words: “My wife and I got married on 12/12/12 in Las Vegas, and she was wearing a Slayer T-shirt. That tells you what kind of woman I’m lucky enough to be with. We have four kids.”

In June 2013, Ernst & Young recognized Dara Khosrowshahi as a Pacific Northwest Entrepreneur of the Year award recipient. He is among the U.S State Department’s List of Prominent Iranian Americans.

Dressed as Superhero Flash at an Expedia party, in 2014

Given the controversies, unethical practices and problems Uber is currently mired in, We are hopeful that Dara Khosrowshahi will turn the company around =)

The article is not aimed at berating graduates of any University, be it Institute of Business Administration (I.B.A), Lahore University of Management Sciences (L.U.M.S), University of Karachi (U.o.K or K.U), Shaheed Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto Institute of Science and Technology (SZABIST), Karachi School for Business & Leadership (K.S.B.L), Bahria University (Islamabad and Karachi), Mohammad Ali Jinnah University (M.A.J.U, Karachi & Islamabad), University of Central Punjab, University of Peshawar, Institute of Management Sciences (I.M.S), Karachi Institute of Technology & Entrepreneurship (K.I.T.E), IQRA University, University of Management & Technology (U.M.T), Greenwich University or any other Foreign University but rather points out at mistakes made in making print ads. Copying and pasting is a norm but that doesn’t mean one must harm his/her creativity just to feed his/her mouth. Is this trend acceptable since the West and the middle east including Latin America, Oceania, East and South East Asia and Africa are being tough on it. if anyone feels berated, it is purely coincidental and not targeted.

JWT, who serves Engro Corporation’s Food and Beverages sector.

New and old logos of Olpers

If Olpers wanted to make a milkshake, why did it copy a copyrighted image and stole credit for such as well

The above picture highlights it. It’s absurd, Engro corporation always hires graduates from Institute of Business Administration (I.B.A) and Lahore University of Management Sciences (L.U.M.S) and yet they fail to produce (Same is done by JWT Pakistan).

I must ask, why hire a bunch of elite “Burger kids” when those “Burger” kids are least capable of producing, eat imported food bought by their Daddies filthy rich wallets, Mommies smoking sheesha in expensive German SUV’s and over sized villas constructed in Defence Housing Authority (D.H.A) and Clifton (Both in Karachi) and from D.H.A in Lahore and Islamabad as well? whats the use? what about those hard working middle class kids from other good and reputed universities who work part time to pay their dues and end up eating dust? is this the Pakistan we wanted? is this the labor market we all want? Of course not!!!!

Lets face it, the middle class in Pakistan is being oppressed. I mean LUMS and IBA do have good and responsible graduates but are they given space? most of them are abroad cursing Pakistan’s feudal society and patriarchal cum feudal social, societal and business systems. This current trend of copy pasting is so high among these so called confused stupid Brown American born/raised Pakistani desis who flaunt arrogance of wealth and fake Pakistani spirit with an American, Canadian and?or British passports. I must ask, are these asswipes even worthy of the North American?European?Middle Eastern market when they come here and mess up our already messed up market? are these buffoons any good? look at the amount of copy pasting and stupid nonsense Urdu sentences they are using. their market research is also very very poor, sorry to say and it is worse than what IBA/LUMS/IoBM/UoK/SZABIST/MAJU/KSBL produces because these universities are very serious and sincere in such matters as well as their students.

JWT and Olpers need to be sued for infringement of copy writing. Using stock images is not only a turn off but a stupid practice as well

Even if the copy pasting thing is a norm, a practice running since decades. but don’t you think people need to be creative when copying?

There is a famous saying in Urdu: “Naqal ke liey Aqal bhi Chaahiyey.” meaning for cheating, you need to be clever (obviously using the mind lol 😀 ). But then again, where’s the creativity in the minds of these kids on whom their parents spent billions, even trillions! where is the spark in their mind? are they lazy? (probably). where in God’s name are we headed?

Shutterstock images will always be stock, but they are best utilized by small and medium enterprises (SME’s) to grab sales and profits in desperation. Secondly, Well established firms should refrain from such because they should rather produce their own images instead of copying images from shutter stock and social networks. Developing countries have no copyright protection laws but since the West is very active, given the current trend of copy pasting hardly and one from the east will be able to work in the west. Reason: It’s not terrorism, it’s the current trend of copying and pasting without any creativity, bluntly copying and pasting. this will harm our already once established creative industry which will not only hurt our impression but will send standards plummeting down to the basement.

Let us all ask ourselves, copying and pasting without any creativity and worse part is using copyrighted stock image and using a stolen image for print ad purpose in media. Will we be spared? no. The Middle east has even tougher copyright laws! and since their managers are much more educated than ours, we can easily get our asses kicked. its depressing, way beyond depressing. Many are not admitting this mistake and call the West hypocrites when in fact we South Asians are becoming more hypocritical day after day, sadly :(. we need to control this trend, we don’t want freeloaders, we should honest, sincere, educated and creative people to save our industry hence we all will be using Indian ad hoardings.